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Den långa traditionen av sekularitet i Frankrike har ett stort inflytande i den publika sfären och har därmed blivit djupt rotad i den franska identiteten. Den sekulära ideologin har resulterat i en lag som förbjuder religiösa symboler i skolan. Sedan hösten 2004 får muslimska flickor inte längre bära slöja i skolan. Syftet med denna uppsats är att presentera unga muslimska kvinnors uppfattning och syn angående denna nya lag. Uppsatsen strävar efter att förstå hur lagen har påverkat dessa kvinnor. Arbetet betonar också unga muslimska kvinnors föreställning om slöjan såväl som deras erfarenheter av ett sekulärt samhälle. Essän är ett resultat av empiriskt arbete av kvalitativ karaktär byggd på ostrukterade intervjuer med sju muslimska kvinnor. Saids koncept orientalism och Foucaults teori om governmentality är centrala element i analysen. Analysen i sin helhet är baserad på olika begrepp. Arbetet konkluderar en ökning av muslimska kvinnors exkludering som en följd av lagen. Lagen har således fått effekter utanför skolans sfär. Muslimska kvinnor i den här studien är stigmatiserade på grund av deras slöja och lagen har plötsligt legitimerat diskriminering mot dem. / The long tradition of secularism in France has a great influence in the public sphere. It is furthermore deeply ingrained in the French identity. Eventually the secular ideology resulted in a law against religious symbols in school. Since autumn 2004 Muslim girls are not any longer permitted to wear the veil in school. This thesis aims to present the perspective of young Muslim women in France regarding the new law. It seeks to capture how the law has had an influence on these women. Additionally it puts forward young Muslim women´s experiences of a secular society and their understandings of the veil. It is an empirical study of a qualitative character, based on unstructured interviews with seven Muslim women. Said´s notion of orientalism and Foucault´s idea of governmentality are central elements in the analysis. Further, the analysis of the empirical material is structured around a variety of concepts. The paper concludes that the law has contributed to an increased islamophobia in French society. Further, Muslim women are excluded to a greater extent due to the law. Hence the law has been extended beyond the educational sphere. Muslim women in this study are stigmatised due to their veil and the law has suddenly legitimatized discrimination against them.

The presence of atheists within the Muslim world has begun to receive global attention after a number of cases in which atheist bloggers and writers in majority Muslim countries were killed for criticising Islam. The rise in number of Arab atheist Facebook groups has sparked conversation about the rise in number of atheists across the Arab world, and to what extent the use of social media platforms has facilitated this. This study examines 2 such Facebook groups and aims to explore the way in which social media platforms can be used to bring a geographically diverse group of people together to form a collective group identity, and to provoke societal change. The research was conducted using qualitative data, gathered using open ended interview and survey questions, alongside quantitative data which was gathered from closed survey questions and raw survey data in an attempt to understand how communication technology is used by these groups to form a collective identity among their members and to achieve shared objectives. The study lies within the frame of new social movement theory, with particular focus on the ever evolving role which online communications can play in developing aspects of a given society.The results showed that social media had given members from both groups the ability to share experiences, develop a collective identity, and utilise their new found visibility to provide the voices of atheists in the Arab world with an authority which they had been lacking. The study found that the freedom for atheists to unite online in large number was exposing closeted atheists as well as practising Muslims to opinions which would not have been as vocalised in the real world. The freedom for both parties to involve themselves in the group has reflected some of the difficulties faced in the real world, but has importantly opened up a dialogue and is working toward the acceptance of atheism within majority Muslim societies.

This ethnographic study investigates the process of placemaking in the context of the newly built Al-Hamd Mosque as a Muslim place of worship in Uppsala, Sweden. I consider how access to space e.g., a mosque or a prayer room, affects the religious practices of Muslims in their everyday life at work, school, or in public. I explore how people navigate other spaces, both physical and social, and what ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’ are used to maintain their religious practice.  I suggest the need for two concepts of consensus in relation to placemaking. The first is what I call community consensus which occurs among Muslim actors in the process of establishing a place such as Al-Hamd Mosque. I explore rituals such as the Taleem sessions (religious seminars) and khutba al jumah (Friday sermon) to analyse negotiations and contestations that take place in such a process. It involves the organising of different actors through hierarchical and power relations to maintain or contest a system of regularities at the mosque. I argue that as a melting pot, multiple systems of order negotiate with one another at Al-Hamd Mosque to create and maintain the community consensus, while protecting the space from impurities. The second form of consensus I call public consensus, is the access to agreements, acceptance, and shared understanding vis-à-vis practising religion in public places in the broader Swedish society. I explore how the lack of public consensus calls for individuals to come up with ‘tactics,’ while groups, in the form of mosque associations, to come up with ‘strategies’ to create places of religious practice. The fluidity of religious practice and the adoption of alternative practices become key tactics assumed by individuals in performing different rituals and practices as they navigate a lack of public consensus in Sweden.

Though scholars have discussed postmodernism in Islam and South Asia before, they tend to (i) assume Muslims as a monolithic group, bypassing the diversity of different cultures and the interaction of these cultures with indigenous practices of Islam; (ii) study postmodernity synchronically, thereby eliding histor(ies) and the possibility of multiple temporalities; and (iii) compare postmodernity in non-Western countries with Western standards, and when these countries fail this test, declare them not-yet-postmodern, or even modern. Negligible and scant discussions of postmodernity that do take place inside Pakistan, most of which are published in newspaper articles, tend to focus on Western postmodernity and its evolution and contemporary position. There is no book-length discussion of postmodernity and postmodernist literary texts from Pakistan and its curious sociopolitical blend of Indo-Muslim and Anglo-Indian influences and interaction with the Islamic political foundations of the country. This project discusses postmodernity and postmodern literature in Pakistan. I argue that, because of a different political, cultural, and literary climate, postmodernity and postmodern literature in Pakistan are distinct from their Western counterparts. Because of technological advancement and neoliberal globalization, Pakistan experiences a different kind of postmodernity resulting in the production of a different kind of postmodern literature. I trace the historical employment of postmodern literary tropes from Indo-Islamic genres, i.e. dastan, to contextualize this conversation. Then I discuss experimental works of fiction like Sultana's Dream (1908), Bina Shah's Before She Sleeps (2018), and Soniah Kamal's Unmarriageable (2019). The last chapter explores the relationship of postmodernity, postmodern politics, and Pakistani and Muslim historiographic metafictional literary texts: The Satanic Verses (1988) and A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008). Hence, the work is regional and national, as well as comparative and transnational.

The study was conducted with the aim of assessing the Saudi Arabian cultural knowledge among the non-Muslim nurses. These nurses work in the obstetric units at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Jeddah and come from different cultural groups and are caring for the Saudi Arabian Muslim women. In order for care to be congruent, comprehensive and of a high quality, the patients' needs should be met at the best attainable level. Nurses in all health care settings are expected to demonstrate knowledge of the culture that they serve in order to eliminate barriers. Data analysis was facilitated with the use of the SPSS 11.5 computer program. The study findings may suggest the development of educational guidelines, which will direct the activities of an educational intervention. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies))

The boundaries of normative Islam are critically explored in this thesis, which presents a translation of the most important aspects of a modern study on bid‘ah (heretical innovation), by the late Egyptian Reformist Scholar, Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazālī (1917 – 1996). The translator’s introduction contextualizes the life and work of the author and also briefly locates this particular study within the broader framework of classical and contemporary writings on the subject of bid‘ah. Only the book’s introduction, first three chapters (constituting the theoretical spine of the original work), and conclusion are translated. The first chapter is an introductory excursus into Islamic law, necessary to enable the reader to grasp the legal debate on bid‘ah. The second chapter casts a wider net, examining the influence of foreign elements upon Islamic thought, while the third chapter deals specifically with the topic of bid‘ah. The short conclusion reaffirms the importance of normative Islamic practice. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Arabic)